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William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) is best remembered as the scientist who invented photography. But Talbot's considerable technical achievements have often overshadowed his growth as an artist. A classicist, physicist, and mathematician by training, Talbot originally viewed his new invention as a means of visual documentation, particularly of the botanical specimens he loved so dearly. But gradually his new technology taught him to see things in a new light, and the growth of Talbot's personal vision reflects the beginnings of photography as an art. Larry Schaaf examines this artistic growth in a collection of high quality reproductions of 100 photographs, representing the full sweep of Talbot's work. The one hundred plates are reproduced in the actual size of the originals and in all the subtle colors that comprised Talbot's early work. They range from his Lilliputian pre-1839 negatives (made in "mousetrap" cameras) through botanical photograms to mid-1840s calotypes that demonstrate a sure command of the new art. Each plate is discussed in detail, drawing on new research by Schaaf. large, oversized, 4to, mint is dj as issued. prev., pub. at $85/
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